


Honesty

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bickering, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Holidays, Humor, Marriage Proposal, Modern Era, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the stress of the holiday season, Levi is left to reflect on his relationship with Hange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> For the Levihan Secret Santa Exchange of 2015, for myshipwillsailon on tumblr. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

Levi doesn’t know what possesses him to let her drag him out the door that night. He had doubted his resolve, grudgingly giving into her pleading and slipping on his boots, following her giddy form out the door. Maybe it was because he had an inkling of hope in a calm evening, quietly making their way through the pathways underground or the heated corridors of cramped malls, loud and bustling with the bodies of last minute shoppers. There is none of that now, his anticipation a past memory as he stands inches from the curb, teeth chattering and toes prickling in his boots, bouncing impatiently as Hange takes her sweet time in the bakery behind him.

Despite his misery, he follows once she finally skips her way out cheerfully, her arms laden with bags. He lets her pull him through the city, leading him down winding streets and into tiny shops hidden in the darkness of alleyways, wedged tightly and almost forgotten in the line of storefronts, their surprisingly worthy merits kept hidden behind dirty, small windows. He counts the hours as they slowly pass, tracking the minutes through every sudden jerk of her hand in his as she tugs him into each store lining the endless streets.

A burly man jostles him to the side as they rush past him, almost knocking him off his feet. He regains his footing against Hange, leaning on her as he rights himself, shoving his hands into his pockets, tucking his chin behind his scarf. She looks at him peculiarly, watching as his teeth chatter a little too loudly, his body shaking just a little too vigorously in his jacket.

“Are you cold?” Hange quips, leaning her head needlessly closer to his, her nose all but brushing the red, stinging skin of his numb cheeks. She gives him a sly smile, one eyebrow quirked up in amusement as she watches his face twist into an awkward grimace.

He lifts one hand between their faces, glaring at Hange between the gaps in his fingers. He lets his fingers curl towards his palm, leaving his middle one erect for her to stare at, buggy and cross-eyed, before he digs its tip into the hollow of her cheek to push her away.

“Levi!” She stumbles back, snorting with laughter as her arms flail out to catch her balance. He turns away from her, shuffling his feet against the sidewalk, leaving her to scamper her way behind him in order to catch up.

“You don’t have to shove your nose into my face,” Levi grumbles as she staggers to his side, tucking his chin against his chest to shield himself from the wind.

“And you don’t have to be fucking rude,” she quips back. He feels her brush against his side, her arm looping through the hole of his arm against his body, pulling him towards her.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be so rude if you didn’t force me to,” he says. Despite the bite in his words, he lets her pull him to her, a meager attempt to gain some sort of warmth in the bitter cold.

“I don’t think you’d never not be rude,” Hange snorts, her laugh drifting off the cloudy mist that floats from her mouth. “Not even if the sky was falling on your short little head.”

She winds her way around the street corner, yanking Levi to the side. He almost loses her in the sea of bodies that crowd the sidewalk that bombard him on the main roads; he trails along behind her like a lagging limb, pulled back by the current of people that push past. He lacks her stamina for the city, unable to navigate the tight corners and the gaps of pressing crowds around him, confused and overwhelmed by the barrage of noises, infrastructure towering over him menacingly. It is only her death grip on him that keeps him secure, the knowing smile she shoots him over her shoulder that keeps him from losing himself in the cacophony.

Levi clicks his teeth, wedging himself between two people, rushing up so he’s at her side again. “Maybe you just haven’t seen me on a good day.”

“Nonsense!” Hange says into the crowd. Her boots stomp against the asphalt confidently, strides laden with an easy determination as she zips her way through, Levi suffering behind her. “That means you’re always having a bad day when you’re with me, and I know that’s a lie.”

“What?” Levi asks; her voice is lost in the noise, jumbled and overpowered by the sound of cars cluttered and sputtering in their traffic jams along the road that, with another knock of shoulders, he finds himself dangerously close to.

“You’re always having a good day when you’re with me,” Hange bellows over the noise, pulling him along.

Levi snorts, only to stumble on the uneven cracks of the sidewalk, bumping into Hange from behind. He doesn’t have to ask for pity, her hands slowly guiding him to the edge of the walkway, backs pressed against the storefronts. He leans securely against the brick, eyes watching people mill about in the chaos, completely unfazed by the mess they’re helping create as they march their way through the streets. 

“I don’t know what makes you believe that,” Levi sputters, sarcasm dripping from his words. “But whatever kind of nonexistent winning streak you think you’ve made out of me having good days with you, know that you just broke it today.”

“Oh please, don’t be such a sourpuss. You’re enjoying yourself and you just won’t admit it.” An inkling of a smirk twitches at one corner of her lips, faltering as her bemused stare shifts in her face, brow furrowing in a twinge of concern. “Right?” Her question is uncertain, her eyes searching his for validation.

Her uneasiness is lost on him. “Tell me who would willingly go out days before Christmas to shop for fun.” Levi says. 

“You don’t think it is?”

“When has overwhelming crowds of noise and aggravated, cold, rude shoppers ever been considered fun?” 

“I wouldn’t be so harsh if I were you,” Hange says, “considering you’re acting like one of them.”

“Can’t help but hop on the fucking bandwagon, I guess,” Levi grumbles. He looks out into the sea of people, grimacing in irritancy from the stress brought on by the season, wincing against the wind whipping their winter clothes like fragile ribbons on the air. Their heads hang and shoulders slouch, faces sullen and tired. “It’s almost contagious when everyone around you is being an asshole.”

“Well, I’m not being an asshole,” Hange says. “Maybe what you need is a little resilience in the face of widespread assholery.”

“Not everyone has the same astounding level of endurance for the city you seem to have,” Levi bites back. “Or the laziness to go holiday shopping at the last minute.”

“I’m barely Christmas shopping!” Hange exclaims. “I bought one thing for Nanaba and the rest were just things for myself.”

“Yet you won’t let me look at some of your bags.”

“They’re meant to be surprises, so excuse me for not telling you I’m buying you gifts right now.” Hange reminds him. “Genius.”

“Well you’re not exactly Isaac fucking Newton,” Levi bites back, “thinking it’s actually smart to go out on some of the busiest shopping days of the year.”

“I enjoy the crowds,” Hange says, squaring her shoulders. “It’s my element.”

“Well, it’s not mine.”

“You didn’t have to come, then.”

“You were the one who insisted that I did.”

Hange leans her head back against the brick wall behind her, her chest heaving with an aggravated breath. She closes her eyes, letting out a plume of mist from her mouth, exhaling her disappointment before it can bloom inside her chest, infect the enthusiasm flush in her body like a tumor. She is still, calm for a minute, a statue among the dozens passing by.

He almost does the same, takes the time to squish himself further against the wall and catch his breath. He is about to apologize for his hostility when Hange smiles, snatching his arm, diving into the crowd again.

“Come on,” she says. She gives him a smile over her shoulder, her ponytail almost slapping him in the face as she whips her head around to look at him and back again, laughing as he struggles along behind her.

“Where the hell are you bringing me now?” Levi calls to her over the noise.

“Somewhere I hope you’ll like.”

He tries to lecture her over the noise, ready to dig the heels of his boots into the concrete like a stubborn child, to demand where she is taking him before she takes one more infuriating step forward. If he were able to speak, his voice would be lost on the breeze of winter’s howling winds and the exhaust of idle cars, carried off into the chitchat of other passersby. But even before he can think to say something he is left dumbstruck by her resolve, the towering strength in the set of her shoulders and her drive in the length of her stride; he lets her take the lead, as always, his mouth agape as words stutter into nothingness in the air in front of his lips, stunned into silence. 

His confidence slowly dwindles the longer they walk together, zooming through the streets and twisting through the maze of bodies, him screaming at her shrieking laughter as he is left to lag behind her as she bolts across crosswalks with as little as three seconds before the flashing hand urges them to stop. He does not focus on the destination, as he is only met with a cheeky grin and the same words – “it’s a surprise” – every time he is able to catch the breath to ask her of it. Instead, he lets himself get lost in the city with her; it is an effort to push down his exasperation and even the small dwindle of fear and open his mind to the landscape of this sprawling city, the pressing mobs and noise a nuisance and aggravator. He shivers, wrapping his scarf around him, bundling his jacket against a cold that threatens to seep into him and wrack him to the bone. But even as he is led through the most dizzying of streets, he is able to take in the few pleasures of the city, the way the exhaust drifts up from buildings in delicate wisps, the gaudy colours of holiday lights strung from poles and winding their way up lampposts, the glittering façade of buildings lit up with the lights that sparkles through the windows, their own little constellations against the night sky. 

He feels himself being yanked to the side, almost tripping before he is able to get his footing on the sudden slope of the street Hange leads him through. It is narrow, closed bridges connecting the buildings on either side above him, concrete walls of offices almost crushing them in between. He is almost shocked when its cramped towers give way to some of the first open skylines he has seen yet. Highways still stretch over them as they walk, the buildings towering above his head; but they are distant now, small cutouts against black, speeding cars no more than a whisper muddled as it is carried to him on the wind.

Hange finally slows, leading him up a hill – one with actual grass, he notes, glad to feel the softness of the soil under his boots – wide and open. The air is fresher here, it’s harshness absent in its sweet caress now that it isn’t forced to rush violently through the narrow tunnels of downtown buildings. Past the expanse of green lie monuments, old and new, the accents of the city laid out for him on the backdrop of the little park she has found him. Vintage brick of breweries and a roundhouse frame the little outcrop of land, timid and homely among the metal giant of the city’s core.

“We’re here,” Hange breathes. She lets go of his hand, flops down on a bench by a little playground.

Levi follows her, kicking at the frozen dirt beneath him. “And what is ‘here,’ exactly?”

Hange stirs through one of her bags, peering up at him only to offer a grin and a shrug. He snorts at her nonchalance.

“Nice to know you brought me somewhere you don’t even know about.”

“If I didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t be able to bring you here,” Hange retorts. Her words are just coherent over the rustling of her bags. “I just don’t know the name of the place, that’s all.”

“So why did you bring me here?”

She doesn’t say anything; her hand reveals itself from the depths of her shopping, pulling out two bundles of wax paper. She places her bags to the side, unwrapping one on her lap and waving the other one at Levi. “You still cold? Might as well eat these while they’re still warm.”

“I thought I told you I wasn’t cold.”

“No, you didn’t,” Hange says. “You shoved a middle finger in my face and kept shivering in that extra small parka of yours.” Her hands find their way around a bakery croissant, tearing a chunk off with her teeth. Her next words are muffled through food, crumbs spewing from her lips. “And even if you did, I know you’re just lying to look cool. The figurative, emotionally distant cool you like to try pretending to be so people don’t realize you just suffer from chronic grumpiness and resting bitch face.”

He glares at her, grimacing, but she does nothing more than offer him a gross, toothy smile, clumps of soggy bread a mess in her mouth. She pats the space beside her on the bench innocently with her palm, looking at him expectantly for a response to her beckoning. 

He begrudgingly obliges, plopping down heavily onto the bench beside her. She offers him the second bundle, and he takes it delicately, warm against his numb fingers. It is soft between his teeth, sweet and hardy, a ball of heat radiating through him, and he feels the heavy weight of the weather’s vicious bite leave him, dissipating from his body. With a grateful breath, he settles into the sturdy wood of the seat, leaning his head back, watching the city lights illuminate the night sky like fireflies. 

Hange leans slightly towards him, a comfortable nudge of her elbow gently pulling him out of his reverie. “You better now?”

He nods, aware of the exhaustion of his body now that the tension he hadn’t realized was there was now gone. “Yeah.”

“I thought this place would calm you down,” Hange muses. She looks out into their small open field, eyes gazing over the skyline, the glowing colours of bright reds and greens of the season shining in the brown of her iris. “You get to see all the cool things from this one little bench, but without all the hubbub. It’s nice to have a little quiet place even when you’re so deep into the city.”

They fall into silence, the two lost in their own thoughts. Levi looks out into the park around them; although quiet, they’re no less alone than in the city. People mill about on their own, more relaxed, taking a moment to bask in the space and intimacy it grants away from cramped and hostile roads. Some are in clusters, friend rambunctious with juvenile energy, some couples cherishing the privacy of a wide-open space, not unlike the two of them now. Their voices cry in delight, squeal with laughter, distant and incoherent, tinkling in the air with joyous aura. 

He watches one couple stroll arm in arm, heads on shoulders, side by side as if glue had left them stuck together. He watches them slowly relish in themselves as he loses them outside his line of sight. He is ever aware of Hange’s own presence, a warm bundle of wool and energy shoulder to shoulder beside him. His hands rustle through his jacket pockets, fingers growing sweaty and nervous as they dance across soft velvet edges.

He thinks of the stark contrast between the unknown couple’s quietness and peace, and their own bickering loudness of the night, and he suddenly feels an uneasiness settle deep into his stomach. His intimacy with Hange in his overthinking seems just slightly pathetic in comparison to others, his own care and nurturing nonexistent. While he tries to remind himself of the ridiculousness of comparing what they have – what wonderful thing they have, though he’ll never have the guts or gall to admit it, stoic in the face of his own emotion, lifting an aloof façade to hide his cantankerous vulnerability – to an anonymous pair of strangers in an unfamiliar city, he still feels uncertainty bloom in him, an insecurity that nags at him of his inadequacy. 

The little velvet box has been sitting in his pocket for months.

He looks to her, meeting her eyes over her hands, clasped by her mouth over her bundle of bread and wrapping. She smiles at him with swollen cheeks, crumbs dotting her chin comically, and he feels the tiny kernel of doubt in his heart slowly dissolve, sated by her unintentional reassurance.

“You warm now?” Hange asks. She slides over to him, one arm winding around his shoulder, resting on the backrest of the bench.

“I don’t know where you’re getting this idea of me being cold from,” Levi says, a smirk playing at his lips. “I told you I wasn’t.”

“A middle finger isn’t telling me you’re not cold.”

“It’s not telling you that I am cold, though.”

“Touché,” Hange hums. 

She shifts in closer, resting her head on his, the rough wool of her hat scraping his hairline. Levi sighs, letting his body lean against hers, his eyes scanning the field in front of him, all too aware of the people passing by, possibly staring at their display. He lets her kiss him on the forehead, and is about to finally accept her grasping the opportunity for public affection by leaning his head on her shoulder before she leaps up suddenly, startling him.

“Well,” she groans, stretching, her arms rising high over her head as if she had just woken from a long nap. “When you’re done with your quiet time, we can start heading out.”

“Already?” Levi asks.

“Might as well,” she replies. “We don’t want to be out all night.”

“It took us twenty minutes to get here,” Levi says, “and we only spent five minutes on this bench.”

“And?”

“We might as well make the trip here worthwhile,” Levi presses.

“I’ll show you around, if you want, but I’m getting restless just sitting here.” She looks to him expectantly, gesturing for him to follow. “Might as well. The scenery around here is really nice, and they dress it up all pretty for the season, it’s a good place to just take a stroll.”

Levi sighs, legs aching as he obliges by her request, getting to his feet. The cold air begins to flood into his jacket again, his back shocked now that the bench is no longer there to provide protection from the cold, slamming into him. He huddles around himself, shoulders raised up to his ears, arms pinned to his side.

Hange fails to hide her smile as she watches him waddle up to her, immediately pressing up against him, a meager attempt to share the warmth of their bodies.

“If I ask if you’re cold now,” she smirks, “will you answer honestly?”

“Fuck off.”

“Only when I make sure you don’t freeze to death,” she says. She pulls off her hat, wisps of hair sticking up, floating in the air from the static. She forcefully pulls it over his head, tugging it over his eyes with a laugh. “Seriously, for someone whose always lecturing me, you don’t even know how to care for yourself sometimes.”

Levi grunts, pulling off the hat and throwing it at her face. “I’m not sharing that hat with you,” he mutters. “Who knows what’s been growing in that rat’s nest of your hair.”

“It’s not that bad,” Hange grumbles, shoving it into one of her shopping bags. “Would you rather freeze?”

“Yes,” Levi deadpans. He rubs his jittery hands together, cupping them over his mouth, his attempt to warm them with his breath futile.

“You’re so stubborn,” Hange sighs. She winds her way around him, wrapping her arms around him from behind before he can turn with her, keeping him facing forward. Her gloved hands find his, cradling them softly, fabric scratching at his knuckles as her fingers massage warmth into his digits. They take a few steps like this, Levi secretly basking in her embrace, the security of her against his back, before she slowly lowers their joined hands, flush against each other.

She shoves each pair of hands into his jacket pockets.

“The fuck!” he yells, struggling away from her breathlessly. He jolts forward, looking back at her incredulously, gasping with fearful breaths.

Hange stares at him with wide eyes, her hands hovering awkwardly at waist level, as if she were frozen where she had stood the moment panic had flood through him. “What the fuck was that about?”

“Don’t do that!” Levi exclaims. 

“Do what?”

“Shove your hands in my pockets.”

“I was just trying to keep you warm,” she explains with a hesitant laugh, looking at him with a furrowed brow and concerned eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Just,” Levi says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t do that. I don’t go sticking my hands into your pockets, I expect you to do the same.”

“Really!” Hange coughs out on a skeptical laugh. “You came to me a week ago to give me change and tissues from my jeans.”

“Well, forgive me for not wanting shredded tissue pieces in our newly washed laundry.”

“So it’s okay to go through pockets with no more than garbage in them,” Hange muses. “What’s so special about what’s in your pockets?”

“None of your damn business,” Levi spits.

“I want to know!” she cries, stepping forward. “You’re always so secretive.”

“Someone’s never heard of showing respect for your partner’s property.”

“Well, if we agree you can go through the junk in my pockets, I can just as respectfully do so with yours!” Hange rebuts. “You can be so reserved sometimes, you know I’m not going to do anything bad.”

“I know that,” Levi says. “I just want my privacy.” He looks down, kicking at the frozen dirt beneath his feet. “And don’t act like you don’t keep secrets either, especially when you wouldn’t show me what was in some of your bags, and after I told you not to get me anything for the holidays!”

Hange looks at him dully. With one motion, all but one of her bags fall to the ground by her feet. With a blank face, she digs into the one in her hands, revealing with a grunt a shining box, quaintly and tastefully ornamented. Pictures of elaborate china cups and saucers lay plastered over the cover, little starburst patterns in the corners announcing their beauty and practicality, of delicate design and sturdy structure.

“It was for your birthday, you dumbass,” Hange deadpans. “I got it for you because I care about you and respect you, as much as you would like to deny it, and I was going to surprise you with it to make you happy. But I guess since we’re apparently both pretty bitter about holding secrets from each other at the moment, I decided to show you now.”

“Oh my god,” Levi breathes. He steps forward tentatively, hands moving forward to take the box.

“I’m not giving it to you now,” Hange says. “It’s still your birthday gift.”

“Hange,” Levi says, “This is so,” his lips struggle to find the right words. “It’s so-“

“Thoughtful?” Hange offers. He looks up to her, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees a smile slowly spread across her face.

“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us,” she continues. “I won’t make a big deal out of the things you do want to keep private, but know that you can always be honest with me. 

“And whatever you have, I’m sure it couldn’t surprise me more than I just did you, seeing the way you’re gaping at me.”

There is a beat of silence where Levi tries to process her words, wanting to laugh at her naivety of thinking; he almost does, and would if it weren’t for the fact that his hand was sinking torpidly into his pocket again, his fingers dancing fearfully over the soft fur of the ring box nestled into the mess of change and notes. His throat grows tight, his legs weak beneath him as he slowly pulls it from his pocket.

The two of them grow silent, nothing but the beating of his pounding heart in his ears, the soft little creak of the hinges in the box as he opens it to reveal a gold band, a small yellow stone glittering humbly as it refracts the colours of the city’s dancing holiday lights, and the tiny flutter of a gasp that leaves her parted lips as her eyes grow wide, sparkling with the same radiance as the ring her offers her.

He wants so desperately to be honest; for his head to find the words to fully emphasize the joy thrumming within his shattered and repaired heart as mangled and gorgeous as hers. He wants the words to dance on his tongue and slip past his lips in order for her to comprehend the joy and light of her in his life that he has only been able to barely display in soft pecks of the cheek and tender kisses to the junction between her neck and shoulder, whispered into the night when his cowardice is just slightly diminished by the sight of her sleeping form. He wishes for some way to understand; not only for her to grasp the ways in which he loved and did not deserve to love her, but for him to understand his own turmoil that stirs in his belly and chest and muddies the logic in his mind, the emotion that has left him confused and scared and horrifyingly vulnerable to her in the most blessed of ways. He wants to tell her he loves her, the word not enough, his own self not enough.

His throat is tight, his breath frozen in his lungs and his mind numb with shock. He can only hope the simple gesture can portray all that he fails to say, all that he struggles to be honest about, and that the glittering tears that well in her eyes and the bubbling, thick laughter that escapes the widest smile he has every seen on her, agape with speechlessness and awe, is a portrayal of her own.

Now is as good a time to be honest as any.


End file.
